[Silent Bob]

Paper tickets are far worse than electronic tickets. 1) if you lose em, your pretty much SOL. They cost you more just to replace them 2) If AA were to send you to another airline, they would have to go through the hassle of reissuing new paper tickets, which again is more trouble than their way. Where as E-tickets are less complicated and reissues can be done on the quick. (I praise the day when E-tickets entered my life).

You guys ended up paying more money than you should have. First off if you misconnected to JFK from LAX on an AA flight, AA is responsible to rebook you without additional cost. I'm not saying it was directly AA's fault (could have been weather or air traffic). But they do have to confirm you on a flight out, not just their own planes but partner airlines as well, since it was their equipment that brought you in.

But the whole thing sounds rather confusing. If you came into JFK on AA and was going out on AA, which carrier issued the tickets that they couldn't fix? If the agent at the moment couldn't do it, he should have called in someone who could. I know United and Continental do it, I'm sure AA has a number they can call to help rectify such situations.

If this was indeed a misconnect, you should use their rules to get a refund for the extra money spent, because in no way should you have to pay for coming in on a delayed flight.